World Environment Day – We Saw It Coming But We Still Bought It

Today is World Environment Day. The United Nations established the day and informs us it’s the most important day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. It strikes me as odd the theme for this year’s World Environment Day is the illegal trade in wildlife. Themes like this are woefully inadequate in the face of today’s pressing crises, amounting to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yes, our world’s biodiversity is critical, but illegal trade is a tiny fraction of even that problem. The real problem is the juggernaut of never-ending expansion in the scale of the human footprint. We are laying siege, not just to wildlife, but to the entirety of our “environment.”

I guess, between today, Earth Day, Earth Overshoot Day, and World Population Day, we get 4 days out of 365 to put our focus on maintaining that environment. It’s not like the environment is some frill, a little frosting on the cake. It is our life-support system. It’s the health of our air, water, soil and fellow creatures. However, in this crazy, irrational, growth-worshipping world, a few days is all we’re willing to give. A nod to stopping illegal wildlife trade, then back to growth and “progress.” No wonder the ship is going down.

There’s nothing I can write today to change that. So I’ll just offer some musical inspiration.